In today's electronic systems, heat dissipation can adversely affect performance. Cooling difficulties may be particularly experienced in dense form factors and bladed architectures such as Advanced Telecom Computing Architecture (ATCA), Advanced Mezzanine Card (AMC), and Micro-ATCA (uATCA) implementations of blade and other types of servers and similar equipment. Cooling multiple AMC modules in ATCA configurations can be extremely problematic due to the ventilation blocking effect one AMC module presents to another.
Integrated circuits and other electronic devices generate heat as they operate, and their performance and reliability may decrease as their temperature rises. For example, an integrated circuit might operate more slowly or become damaged when it becomes too hot. To reduce this effect, a motorized fan heatsink (e.g., a blower) or liquid cooling system may be provided to lower the integrated circuit's temperature. In either case, the moving parts associated with the cooling system may fail. In addition, the location of the integrated circuit and surrounding components might make such solutions impractical. Moreover, the sound and/or electromagnetic noise produced by these cooling systems may be undesirable.